Friday, March 1, 2013

When Paul Thomas Anderson started his career
with the impressive one-two punch of Hard
Eight (1996) and Boogie Nights
(1997), he was touted as an exciting young filmmaker that wore his influences
on his sleeve, most notably the work of Jonathan Demme and Martin Scorsese.
With his ambitious epic Magnolia (1999),
he added Robert Altman to the list of cinematic influences. Punch-Drunk Love (2002) was a game changer
of sorts that saw Anderson start to move away from the sometimes show-offy
camerawork of his first three films to a more restrained style with an emphasis
on character. There Will Be Blood
(2007) was a towering achievement – a fascinating study of one man’s
all-consuming greed. With this film, Anderson favored long takes that allowed
his actors to work their magic and dive deep into their characters.

The Master (2012) continues in this
fashion but sees Anderson eschew a traditional linear narrative for something
more abstract as he focuses on the turbulent relationship between two men.
Early speculation suggested that this film was going to be a scathing look at
Scientology, a cult created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard in the
1950s. Anderson tried to dispel these rumors and, to be fair, The Master is more concerned with the
origins of a Scientology-like cult and explores what motivates its inception
and what draws people to it.

After a stint in the navy during World War II,
Freddie Quell (Phoenix) finds himself adrift in life. He exhibits rather odd
behavior that suggests some kind of post-traumatic stress derived from his
experiences during the war. He’s a restless spirit drifting through life in
search of some kind of purpose or direction. Once released from the navy, he
goes through a series of jobs, including a department store portrait
photographer, but never lasts very long at any of them. Along comes Lancaster
Dodd (Hoffman), a wealthy man whose boat Freddie sneaks aboard one night. Instead
of kicking him off, Dodd takes Freddie under his wing and tries to tame the
man’s wild spirit through the teachings in a book he wrote entitled, The Cause. Freddie is intrigued by
Dodd’s proposal and agrees to submit to a series of tests known as “The
Process.”

Like There
Will Be Blood, The Master features a battle of wills between two
diametrically opposed men with Freddie representing chaos and Dodd representing
order. These characters are impressively portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix and
Philip Seymour Hoffman with the former playing the wild id to the latter’s
controlled ego. Phoenix has never been better, continuing to grow as an actor
by tackling unconventional roles and making unusual choices while inhabiting
them. He brings an exciting unpredictability to the volatile Freddie. Hoffman
is an ideal foil as the self-important Dodd who sees himself as a great man,
but is nothing more than a con man. Where Freddie externalizes everything Dodd
internalizes, which makes him something of an enigma, initially, and this is
what Freddie finds so fascinating. An interesting thing happens over the course
of the film. At first, it seems that Freddie is an easy character to figure
out, while Dodd comes across as inscrutable, but as we spend more time with
these characters it becomes evident that Freddie is a harder person to read –
we never get a handle on what makes him tick exactly – while Dodd reveals his
true nature. The scenes with Phoenix and Hoffman, of which there are many, are
electrifying as they play off each other so well, especially in a scene where
Freddie submits to “The Process” – a series of questions that Dodd asks him in
an attempt to break down his inhibitions and dig deep within himself through
millions of years and past lives.

Phoenix and Hoffman deliver riveting
performances in this absorbing drama about the dangerously seductive allure of
cults like The Cause that prey on the disaffected by convincing them that they
have the answers to their problems. This is but only one reading of this film
and I feel like after a single viewing I have barely scratched the surface.
This is the kind of film that invites repeated viewings because there is so
much going on under the surface. With The
Master, Anderson has created another powerful film about people pushed to
their limits and looking for answers to the questions they have about life.
Some people find it in religion or philosophy and for some they spend their
whole lives searching.

Special Features:

“Back Beyond” is 20 minutes of outtakes and
deleted scenes. This collection of odds and ends provides a little more insight
into the characters.

Also included is a collection of teasers and
trailers that actually features more footage that was cut out of the final
film.

“Unguided Message” is a behind-the-scenes
featurette that amounts to a collection of fly-on-the-wall footage of the film
being made.

5 comments:

Great write up, and glad to hear you recommend it! I enjoyed your encapsulation of Anderson's career. He certainly didn't go conventional! I still haven't caught this one, although I'll have too very soon. Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman together are enough to make it a must see for me.

Gonna be seeing this one possibly today, if your review is any indication, I will LOVE this one! PTA hasn't dissapointed me yet, I doubt he'll start with this one. He's a ballsy director for tackling this subject in an even more direct manner then he did in There Will Be Blood.